Source: Indian ExpressSalboni, November 03 The West Bengal government has admitted to a lapse in security of the chief minister which suspected Maoists used to target his convoy in Salboni on Sunday. And the man to admit this was none other than West Bengal Director General of Police AB Vohra.

Six policemen were injured in the blast that ripped through a police jeep minutes after the convoy carrying Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan passed the spot.

Police said six persons had been arrested. Three policemen — an inspector and two constables — who were responsible for manning the blast spot have been suspended for dereliction of duty.

Vohra, who rushed to the blast site on Monday morning, also talked to the district administration and pointed out the lapses in CM’s security.

Later talking to reporters, he said: “The police failed to apprehend the attack.”

After receiving a primary report from the DGP, Home Secretary Ashok Mohan Chakrabarti described Sunday’s incident as “a serous lapse in security”.

“No one responsible for the incident will be spared, no matter how big an officer one is,” Chakrabarti said.

The CPM state secretary, Biman Bose, made it amply clear that the police and intelligence failure was the reason for Sunday’s incident.

“The administration should have had information that such a thing was about to happen. The Maoists had over a half-kilometer-long wire attached to the bomb. It ran through open fields and along a canal bank. It is very difficult to accept that no one saw them,” said Bose. Sources in the Chief Minister’s secretariat said even Bhattacharjee himself was unhappy about the role of the district police. He has pointed out the lack of intelligence inputs.

Apart from the inquiry initiated by the DGP, Bhattacharjee has directed his Chief Security Officer, AK Maliwal, to file a separate report on the incident. “The superintendent of police of West Midnapore cannot deny his responsibility,” said a senior official of the CM’s secretariat.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union Home minister Shivraj Patil, meanwhile, had a telephonic conversation with the Bhattacharjee on Monday. “Both asked about my well being and wanted to know the details of Sunday’s incident,” the chief minister told reporters.

Earlier in the day, both Vohra and Maliwal made a on the spot inquiry of Sunday’s blast. The officers traversed through the paddy fields adjacent to the blast spot and went to the point from where the Maoists reportedly triggered the blast.

They tried to comprehend how the high tension wire, overhead the blast site, snapped with the blast. The police are also trying to trace the escape routes that the Maoists could have used.

Both the officers were present for more than two hours on the spot and later Vohra held a series of meetings with the district police officers.

Lapses on part of West Bengal police for naxal attack on VIPs

New Delhi (PTI): Basic security drill was not ensured by West Bengal police ahead of the visit of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan to Maoist-infested Midnapore district on Sunday when the Left-wing extremists triggered a landmine explosion.

Sources in Union Home Ministry said the police had not carried the basic road opening exercise, a mandatory security drill, ahead of the VIP arrival to or departure from a foundation-laying ceremony of a steel project in West Midnapore district.

The remote-controlled mine was exploded by the Maoists at Salboni shortly after Bhattacharjee had passed through that area and Paswan was approaching the point in Jhargram district, adjacent to naxal-infested Midnapore district.

While state Home Secretary A M Chakraborty said it was not a timer but a remote controlled device used to trigger the blast, Union Home Ministry officials were surprised that the West Bengal Police had not sent a Road opening Party (RoP) ahead of the VIP visit.

The pilot car of Paswan was caught in the mine explosion which was followed by the fall of a high-voltage electricity wire that led to injuries to six policemen.

State Police Chief A B Vohra himself is conducting an inquiry and fix responsibilities in case of lapses.

Victory of Maoists in Nepal has two reactions in India. One which portray this victory as an opportunity for Indian government to pursue Nexalites in India to join mainstream and follow the path of their Nepali counterpart.

According to second reaction victory of Maoists in Nepal is going to deteriorate the security interests of Indian and Indian government should work hard to crush Maoist insurgency in Nepal as well preventing Maoists to make king of Nepal irrelevant in political context.

The most dangerous sign which people in Indian media have shown is that they are pleading for Maoists and it has some serious implications as well reasons. Indian media in general and print in particular has dominance of people who are indoctrinated with Leftist ideology and most of them were activists of Left in their college period. They belong to that period when Marxism was fashion for intellectuals and college campuses were full of these people. In India since 1989 social and political change took place. After Economic reform was initiated and some drastic changes came in existence at economic level it has some impact on society as well. In the mean time surgence of Hindu forces was witnessed and leftist ideology sidelined.

After demolition of Babri structure in Ayodhya in 1992 leftists collaborated with several anti Hindu forces in the name of secularism and in this composition they don’t have more say but were surviving in any way.

After 2000 situation has changed to some extent and social division of have’s and have’s not has come in debate again and it has given a chance to leftist to curse American policies as well some agencies as responsible for all this. In Indian context this development is very important because social disparity has created a vacuum in society and provided an opportunity for any organization to woo have-not’s to their side and Naxalites in India exploited this situation in very shrewd manner. They are active in remote part of India which is very poor, illiterate and geographically scattered and made of hills and forests. Because of its geographical conditions these areas are very much terrorism prone.

Two years back I journeyed one of Naxal effected area named Chhatisgarh and met with some Naxalites. They have clear edge on security forces because of geographical structure but most important thing is that Naxalites working on parallel political and social system. They have their own school in which they not only teach children of tribal but also give financial assistance to their parents. I have a chance to visit their schools also they have their text books and these text books teach that Hindus in India are in alliance with imperialistic America and we have to fight both communal and imperialistic forces because both are two faces of same coin. They talk about a new world order where there will be no disparity and there is equality. They also publish a magazine called Mukti Maarg [way of salvation]. In this magazine they have mobilized those writers and acamecians who have left inclination. Islamists also talk of new world order based on Qur’an and shriyat and both ideologies support repression and violence to achieve their goal.

This theme has also been adopted by Islamists in India against Hindu forces as well as America. This is a common point where Islamists and leftists in India come close to each other. After victory of Maoists in Nepal left academia and establishment in Indian see a chance of resurgence of communism in global perspective and this is the reason why they are pursuing Indian people and government to hail the victory of Maoists and take it as a golden opportunity to take Naxalites back in mainstream.

I want to draw your attention on one more important point about which nobody has discussed but it has serious implications on both India and America. In India leftists have very limited electoral appeal and they are confined to only three states West Bengal, Keral and Tripura and in other states their presence is negligible. In new scenario they are thinking about their resurgence with help of Naxalites. Naxalites have big presence in more than 100 districts of India with states, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, West Bengal, TamilNadu, Jharkhnd, Chhatisgarh, Andhra Pradesh. In these states they have more influence in some pockets. When two years back I visited Chhatisgarh and met with some Naxalites and their sympathizers I was told to have a close look on the developments of Nepal and told me about their plan that when they would be able to brought down system of Nepal and construct it with their plan they will sharpen their movement in India. These sympathizers of Naxalites are almost activists of Communists parties in India and with support of Naxalites and intimidation these sympathizers have a plan to broaden the electoral power of Communists in India.

As earlier I said growth of Naxalites in India have some effect on America also. After 911 we have witnessed several left ideologues overtly supporting Islamists but in India new nexus is building and leftists and Islamists have common enemy in India in the name of Hindu and America. If this nexus will get strength in India and south Asia finally it would damage America and West as well.

Four years back In India there were several people in Media with liberal-left inclination who were saying that Al Qaeda has launched a war against America and India has not to worry because Osama Bin Laden has said nothing against India. It was mischievous misrepresentation of facts. These are the people who want to see the victory of communist ideology at any cost and even they don’t hesitate to make an alliance with Islamists for this cause. Victory of Maoists in Nepal has emboldened leftists in India and they are dreaming of the resurgence of communism.

To counter this growing trend we have to take some initiatives. A parallel nationalist socialist movement should be promoted in India to fill the vacuum of dissatisfied people which ultimately culminates in strong anti imperialistic movement. Once nationalist socialist movement will take place Naxalites have no chance to woo dissatisfied people to their side. This is also true with Chinese hegemony in Asia. Coalition government in India of Congress and Left have some common agenda and congress is eyeing for next 10 years to stay in power. President of Congress Party Mrs Sonia Gandhi grooming her son Rahul Gandhi to hold the post of premiership for next 10 years. To make this happen Congress has to rely heavily on Left parties and this is why congress has adopted the policy of submission to leftists and Islamist. In this situation Indian government in near future is going to embolden the Islamist and leftist forces.

Taking into account the global scenario Indian and American interest has become very much common at least at strategic level. Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and China could come close with a block in near future and it would have security implications for India. Nexus of Red green alliance as Dr Richard Benkin has predicted could become reality in South Asia. To prevent this India and America should come together and America should consider Hindu nationalists as their ally.

FACT in association with Hindu Samhati has organised an exhibition of the Persecution of Minorities in Bangladesh by the Islamic Fundamentalists. Ashru (tears), is an exhibition on the shocking persecution that has been and is being inflicted against the Hindus and other minorities in Bangladesh. The Exhibition shall go on 1st – 6th April, 2008, at Thakurnagar.

The exhibition coincides with the holy occasion of the birthday of Sri Sri Harichand Thakur – a great social and religious reformer of the 18th century and the founding Guru of the Matuya Sect (a Vaishnav Sect). The sect which primarily consists of the Namasudras a valiant Caste of Vaishanavites assembles in numbers as close to a million and raising every year to comemorate the fight against the persecution lead by H H Sri Sri Harichand Thackur in Bangladesh and India. The persecution inflicted by the Islamists was so unbearable that H H Sri Sri Harichand Thakur had to fight them.

” The the people and Govt of India have forgotten the plight of the refugees from the East pakistan / East Bengal while those from the west were accomodated and well compensated those from the east are still lagging in poverty” said Sri Ratnoswar Sorkar. The Refugee front he said would take every action possible to give the refugees their deserving right.

“Hindu Samhati is done a good begining with the Bangladeshi Minorities’ exhibition and I expect the Hindu Samhati to work among the lower classes of the society so that all classes of the society stand united to face any future challenges” Sri Adityo Roy. He added Hindu Unity is not possible without a conmbined effort and upliftment of the denied. The matuya sampraday had been deprived of upper class Hindus and that should never have happened when they were being persecuted by the Islamic fundamentalists.

“The head quarters of Matuya Sampraday in Bangladesh. He asked why the people of Orakandi, bangladesh are not able to come here at Thakur Nagar for this festival Matuya mela”. The Simple reason He said was they are not muslims and only Muslims are pampered with all favours in Bengal. In Bengal there are some individuals and organisations trying to hide the barborous torture by muslims against Hindus. As a result Matuyas of Orakandi took refuge at Thakur Nagar and this is the time to act and if we do not resist the Illegal migration of Bangladeshis the people of Thakurnagar have to become refugees in someother part of the country. There are so many Thakur nagars along the borders said Sri Tathogatho Roy.

We have had a torturous and attrocities victims with heavy hearts all over India. in India we were inflicted with this wounds for over 1000 years, but still we have not learnt any lessons. The partition of India, direct action in Bangladesh 1946 and many other incidents stand illustration of the aparthied against the Hindus. 40,000 women along with Rani padmini welcomed death in fire rather than the attrocious bad sight of the Muslims. Hindu Samati and organisations like this are the need of the hour to bravely stand up to the attrocities and say enough is enough and to speak the truth of actually what had happened. Sri Keshav rao Dixit

Israel should be an eye opener its a perfect case study for the Hindus.

“The attrocities against Hindus are endless and still our communist inspired media or the social and human right workers do not deem it fit to raise a voice against them. In the name of the secular garb the voice of the deprived is being shutdown, in the garb of fancy words like freedom of expression and speech and selective usage of them there has been a continuous effort to insult the Hindus” Sri tapon kumar Ghosh said.

The Organisation FACT stands for Foundation Against Continuing Terrorism and you all sitting here will be surprised to learn that the founder of this organisation is a French journalist who has been living in India for more than three decades. It also reminds us of how denied and in deep slumber we Hindus are, that a foreigner has to take up the fight on our behalf. Ofcourse it is another thing that he is more Hindu than most of us. Tapon kumar Gosh

About the Mela and the Man behind it.

Thakur, Harichand (1811-1877) a Hindu votary and founder of the matuya sect, was born in Orakandi of kashiani upazila in gopalganj (Greater faridpur) on the thirteenth day of Falgun 1214 of the Bangla calendar. His father, Yashomanta Thakur, was a Maithili Brahmin and a devout Vaisnava.

H H Harichand received little formal education. After completing his initial schooling in a pathshala, he attended school for only a few months. He then started spending his time with shepherds and cowboys and roamed with them from one place to another. He started changing from this time. He was loved by all of his friends for his physical beauty, naivete, love for music and philanthropic attitude. He could also sing bhajan (devotional songs).

H H Harichand’s doctrine is based on three basic principles-truth, love, and sanctity. The doctrine treats all people as equal; people are not seen according to castes or sects. Himself a Brahmin, he professed mixed with lower-caste people and treated them with the same dignity as he did other castes. This is why most of his followers believe H H Harichand to be an avatar (incarnation) of vishnu, and are from the lower strata of society. They used to affirm: Rama hari krisna hari hari gorachand. Sarba hari mile ei purna harichand (Rama is lord, Krishna is lord, lord is Chaitanyadev. But all of them make our Harichand, who is our lord.)

Harichand did not believe in asceticism; he was more of a family man; and it is from within the family that he preached the word of God. He believed that ‘Grhete thakiya yar hay bhaboday. Sei ye param sadhu janio nishchay‘ (the best ascetic is he who can express his devotion to God remaining a family man). He mobilised all the neglected sects and castes and inspired them to remain true to the openness of Hinduism.

H H Sri Sri Harichand left 12 instructions for the matuyas, known as Dvadash Ajna (Twelve Commands):1. always speak the truth,2. respect your parents like gods,3. treat woman as your mother,4. love the world,5. remain liberal to all the religions,6. never discriminate on racial counts,7. try to establish Harimandir (temple of the Lord),8. sit in prayer everyday,9. Sacrifice your self for God,10. do not practice asceticism in a garb,11. hold the six cardinal passions in check, and12. utter the name of your Lord while working with your hand.

H H Sri Sri Harichand died on Wednesday 23 Falgun, the year 1284 of the Bangla calendar.

Hindu bathing festival in Gopalganj, Bangladesh

The Maha Baruni Bath Festival of the believers of the Hindu religion at village Orakandi under Kashiani upazila in Gopalganj is one of the biggest festivals in Bangladesh. The fair is organised every year marking the birth anniversary of Hindu priest Sri Sri Harichand Thakur, who was born in the village.

As they believe that Harichand’s residence is one of the holiest places containing holy water, thousands of pilgrims take baths in Kamona Sagar and Dudh Sagar — two ponds in the residence — on the date of his birth ‘to purify them with the holy water and to be cured of their diseases.’Thousands of pilgrims from across the country, India, Nepal, Bhutan and Thailand attended the festival.

As ironies go, it probably doesn’t get any better than this. A panic-stricken Marxist government bundling up a feminist Muslim writer in the swathes of a protective black burqa and parceling her off to a state ruled by the BJP — a party that the Left would otherwise have you believe is full of religious bigots.

The veil on her head must have caused Taslima Nasreen almost as much discomfort as the goons hunting her down. She once famously took on the ‘freedom of choice’ school of India’s Muslim intelligentsia by writing that “covering a woman’s head means covering her brain and ensuring that it doesn’t work”. She’s always argued that whether or not Islam sanctifies the purdah is not the point. A shroud designed to throttle a woman’s sexuality, she says, must be stripped off irrespective. In a signed piece in the Outlook called ‘Let’s Burn the Burqa’, Nasreen took on liberal activists like Shabana Azmi (who has enraged enough mad mullahs herself to know exactly what it feels like) for playing too safe on the veil.

So, does that make some of you feel that she’s only got what she asked for?Or do we need to shamefully concede that the public discourse on creative freedom and individual liberties has got horribly entangled in a twisted version of secularism and political hypocrisy?

Nasreen may well be an attention-seeker who is compulsively provocative and over-simplistic in her formulations on Islam and women. Her literary worthiness could be a matter of legitimate dispute and her eagerness to reveal her personal sexual history a complete turn-off. Many of her critics condemn the Bangladeshi writer for her propensity to ‘seek trouble’ in a country that has been generous enough to offer her asylum.

But when confronted with India’s larger claim to being a democratic, free society, none of that is really the point. All great art is historically rooted in irreverence and disbelief. And all open societies must permit absolute freedom to individuals — artistes or not — to question and reject inherited wisdom. Nasreen has been reduced to living the life of a fugitive on the run all because some fringe Muslim group decided to mix up the carnage in Nandigram with literary censorship and because the CPI(M) government was too nervous to question the bizarre juxtaposition of the protestors.

The Taslima Nasreen controversy is not as important for what it says about her as it is for what it says about us — as a country and as a people.

We may want to brand Nasreen as an ‘outsider’ who is not worth the turmoil she causes. But we aren’t qualitatively different when it comes to our own people either. Much the same arguments and adjectives (publicity-hungry, insensitive, arrogant, childishly provocative, etc.) were used to justify the forced exile of India’s most celebrated painter, M.F. Husain. India’s elite may trip over itself to own one of his frames, an aspiring middle-class may invest in him like they once did in gold and starlets may twitter incoherently at the possibility of being immortalised on the great man’s easel. But it hasn’t moved any of us into campaigning for a 92-year-old man pushed out of his own country.

Joking with me recently, Husain said he was living the life of a global jetsetter — dividing his time between London and Dubai. Then, suddenly, the quivering voice dropped to a faint whisper, as he said, “I don’t think I can come back home till the BJP is willing to change its mind.”

And so, these are the befuddling contradictions of India’s political establishment.

The BJP is upset at the writer being tossed around from state to state like a “football” and wants India to grant Nasreen a permanent visa and political asylum. In other words, it’s quite happy for Islam to be brought under the microscope of literary scepticism. But if Husain wants to interpret Hindu goddesses in his characteristically iconoclastic style, that’s not just unacceptable. It’s reason enough to send him to jail.

The Congress, with quintessential timidity, wants to offend no one. So, it’s worked out a piecemeal arrangement wherein every few months, it nervously tiptoes around the issue and extends Nasreen’s visa, hoping that no one will really notice. Its state unit in West Bengal has called Nasreen’s autobiography a “piece of pornography” and supported the West Bengal government’s decision to ban it.

If the BJP is comfortable in politically exploiting radical Islam to its advantage, the Congress is careful to not offend its practitioners for exactly the same motivated reasons. If you remember, the Prime Minister made it a point to take an official position against the Danish cartoonist who allegedly disrespected the Prophet. And it’s a matter of some irony that it’s under this government’s Home Ministry that Husain was slapped with court notices.

And finally, the ‘progressive’ Marxists not just banned Nasreen’s book (this in a state where the Chief Minister sees himself as a poet and literary philosopher), their party leader declared without any embarrassment that if Nasreen was going to be “so much trouble” she should just pack her bags and leave. The Left has treated the protests by the Muslim Right as worthy of response, but shown only reflexive contempt for the same sort of complaints from the Hindu Right.

So, what about the rest of us?

Have we been less hypocritical than our political leaders? Or have our positions, too, been coloured by prejudice?

Do we show the same anger for the ‘liberal’ politicians who push a writer out of her home as we do for the goons who vandalised the fine arts faculty in a university in Gujarat? Does a twisted notion of secularism make us respond to censorship differently when it applies to the Hindu majority? We are quick to condemn the lunatics who wield trishuls and wear saffron. But isn’t it time that the skull-capped and long-bearded version of fanaticism and hooliganism receives our contempt in exactly the same measure?

Creative freedom cannot be applied selectively. Otherwise, our self-image of being an open and proud democracy will need another look in the mirror.

Evidence gathered by the CBI is believed to suggest that West Bengal Police acted in connivance with the CPI(M)’s ‘Harmat Brigade’, comprising Marxist cadre trained in hit-and-run tactics, during the March 14 violence that claimed at least 14 lives and left scores injured at Nandigram.According to reports, the evidence suggests at least two senior IPS officials had held several meetings with a CPI(M) MP, an MLA and a zilla parishad member at the State Electricity Board guesthouse in Kolaghat where they chalked out the action plan. In order to keep the deliberations a closely guarded secret, even the District Superintendent of Police was not allowed to participate in the meetings, the last of which was held on March 13 evening. Courtey: INI SIGNAL BLOG

video courtesy: ibnlive.com

Unprecedented vandalism in Kolkata, army called in

Shyamal Sarkar, 21 November 2007, Wednesday

MINDLESS ANGER and an orgy of violence hit central Kolkata in waves for nearly seven hours on Wednesday with hooligans taking on the police and the Rapid Action Force (RAF) burning cars and buses, looting shops and pelting stones. A chakka jam call given by the All India Minority Forum (AIMF) protesting against the Nandigram violence and demanding that the visa of controversial Bangladesh authoress Taslima Nasreen be revoked and she be thrown out of the country, snowballed out of control. The issue of Tasmila’s expulsion overtook the Nandigram factor with posters being held aloft saying “Taslima go back”. The Army had to be called into stage a flag march after hours of unabated violence which centred and also spread to a potentially volatile areas taking on communal overtones. for a detailed report

Painting a grim picture of CPI(M) cadre’s brutality at Nandigram, Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind (JUH) has claimed that over 30,000 displaced people, mostly belonging to the Muslim community, are languishing in relief camps and demanded that a joint Parliamentary delegation should visit the victims.

“Nothing less than a joint Parliamentary team would bring forth the truth of Nandigram, which would totally expose the CPI(M) rule. Given the magnitude of the State orchestrated tragedy, the country’s Parliament must know what kind of price the poor farmers of Nandigram paid for no fault of theirs,” JUH general secretary of West Bengal Maulana Siddiqullah Chowdhury told The Pioneer on Tuesday.

The JUH has been in the forefront of the people’s protest against the CPI(M) in Nandigram and Chowdhury has been highly critical of the CPI(M)’s excesses against the people who have refused to succumb to the terror tactics of the Red Brigade.

“Over 30,000 people, mostly Muslims, have become refugees in their own homeland in Nandigram, thanks to the CPI(M) cadre. They are not allowing us to take relief materials to the camps, and are asking the people to accept their writ to survive,” he claimed.